Opinion Christopher Wray is getting away with doing a lousy job

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Wray has been a bad FBI head

Link to tweet

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/02/christopher-wray-failure/

The MAGA right thinks FBI Director Christopher A. Wray is some sort of patsy for Democrats. But the problem is not that Wray, a Trump appointee, is showing favoritism to a Democratic administration. It’s that he is not doing his job when it comes to threats from right-wing authoritarianism.

Don’t take my word for it. The Government Accountability Office issued a report this week concerning the performance of multiple agencies and police units regarding the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Among its findings: The FBI “did not consistently follow agency policies or procedures for processing tips or potential threats because they did not have controls to ensure compliance with policies.”

The extent to which the FBI was aware of credible threats but did not prepare is breathtaking:

In the weeks preceding the January 6 attack on the Capitol, the FBI obtained information across other sources indicating potential threats. Through human source reporting, investigations, and observed activity, the FBI identified the increasing threat of violence at high profile special events, such as the 2020 election and 2021 presidential inauguration. FBI officials we spoke with said that from December 29, 2020, through January 6, 2021, they tracked domestic terrorism subjects that were traveling to Washington, D.C., and developed reports related to January 6 events. As of January 6, 2021, FBI officials noted that the Washington Field Office was tracking 18 domestic terrorism subjects as potential travelers to the D.C. area.
Other information came directly from social media platforms. From October 1, 2020, through January 5, 2021, officials from the FBI we spoke with said they obtained and reviewed 73 potential domestic terrorism related referrals from one social media platform, and obtained one referral on January 4, 2021, related to potential violence in Washington, D.C. on January 6. In addition, the FBI received information from another social media platform from late November 2020 through January 6, 2021, regarding potential violence at January 6 events.

Once the FBI had that information, it did not act upon it with the urgency required. “FBI personnel did not follow policies for processing some tips, resulting in them not being developed into reports that could have been shared with partners. Specifically, the FBI did not process all relevant information related to potential violence on January 6.”.....

Putting the incidents together — the Jan. 6 debacle, the failure to collect domestic terrorism data and the FBI’s undue resistance to enforcing a subpoena (that ultimately turned up a raft of documents not previously disclosed) — one is left wondering why the FBI seems disinclined to stand up to right-wing authoritarian movements and figures. Whatever the reason, the pattern reveals an unmistakable lack of effective leadership. And that in turn raises the question: Why is Wray still there?

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